Brexiters wriggling out of promise to cut payments to EU

by Hugo Dixon | 01.12.2016
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One of the Leave camp’s most popular pledges during the referendum was to axe contributions to Brussels. Now David Davis, the Brexit secretary, has admitted we may keep paying to secure market access.

The promise was splattered on Boris Johnson’s battle bus, which read: “We send the EU £350 million a week. Let’s fund our NHS instead”. Not only was it a lie that we send Brussels £350 million a week. Because Brexit will damage our public finances, there will actually be less money to spend not more. Last week, the Office of Budget Responsibility predicted that it would cause borrowing to rise by £226 million a week.

But it’s even worse than that. The government is letting it be known that we may need to keep paying money to the EU in return for market access.

In response to a question in parliament today about whether the UK would consider making contributions, Davis said: “The major criterion here is that we get the best possible access for goods and services to the European market. And if that’s included in what [the questioner is] talking about, then of course we’d consider it.” (Go to 9:42:52 mark).

If the Brexiters had been honest about future payments into the EU budget, it is doubtful whether so many people would have backed Leave.

Not that this willingness will be sufficient to secure full access, mind you. We will also need to accept two other conditions Brexiters have railed against – free movement and following the EU’s rules.

Johnson may already be wriggling on the first of these. Sky News says he told EU ambassadors over breakfast that he was personally in favour of free movement – though the foreign minister denies he said such a thing.

Be that as it may, Johnson was the first prominent Brexiter to edge out of the promise to nix payments to Brussels – refusing to rule out such contributions in an interview with The Sun in September. Theresa May then omitted to set this as a red line in her otherwise hardline Tory party conference speech.

Continuing to give money to the EU to protect our economy may well be a sensible policy. But if we do so, it will ram home that the Brexiters peddled their wares on the basis of a thoroughly false prospectus. All the more reason for voters to to be given a chance to change their minds when they finally see what Brexit means.

Hugo Dixon is co-founder of CommonGround as well as editor-in-chief of InFacts. You can sign up as a supporter here.

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3 Responses to “Brexiters wriggling out of promise to cut payments to EU”

  • The leave vote was not based on a rational assessment of the facts but on a number of other factors, emotion, prejudice etc. What is even more surprising about Mr Davis’s position now is that in 2002 in the House of Commons he specifically stated that referenda should only ever be held after all the implications and details of the proposed referendum had been thoroughly debated by Parliament. This of course was completely lacking in the present Referendum Campaign, hence probably the result and the present difficulties of the UK government.
    For a more detailed analysis of the present government’s position and Mr Davis’s about turn on referenda ,Infacts readers should read the article by Dr Andrew Blick of the Federal Trust on Taking back Control ? The EU referendum, Parliament, and the May ( Theresa ) doctrine. It highlights, inter alia, the intrinsic weakness of the present policy of the UK government .

  • OK. All this reporting is fine. It makes clear what all voters now know; holding a referendum was wrong, the preparation for it was wrong, lies were told, the champions of staying in were wishy-washy, and the damages to UK, economically, but also socially and politically is intense. But this chatting is not enough. There is an intense need to make a position that stops this exit now. May is peddling the idea she will look after the UK workers. When BREXIT happens there won’t be any money to do this and workers won’t be protected. We need what the BREXITERs had; a programme (they used a software to do this) that will help target issues, seed doubt by telling the truth and get this mess changed. You guys must know how to do this better.